[OSM-talk] Named passages on hiking paths

[Gilles Bassière]

Hi,

I'd like to get advice about toponymy in the context of hiking paths.

When hiking, I often encounter short technical passages which have a
name painted on the rock. In French, the name almost always begin with
"Pas de ..." but I'm not sure if there is a good translation for "pas"
in English [1]. Such portions of the path often consist in passing a
small cliff or an exposed ridge, they may be equipped with chains or cables.

I think it is good to have these passages in OSM because they can be
considered as a mark or a step along the hiking route. My problem is
that I can't find a proper tagging scheme.

I could put the name on the path segment [2] but that would often
conflict with the name of the path (if any) [3]. Also, it doesn't convey
the idea of a step along the path.

Another solution is to use the place=locality [4] but that would mean
that a named place exists with a path going though. Here, I think the
name is for the technical passage (part of the path), not the place.
There would be no name if there were no path. Moreover, such a place
name is mostly relevant to hikers whereas place=locality is not specific.

Eventually, I used a custom tag for my latest edit: hiking=passage [5]
but I'm not sure this can make sense for other mappers and I'm looking
for feedback on this.

[1]: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1978431
[2]: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/85315111
[3]: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/633030063
[4]: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/1105440189
[5]: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/1200975380

Regards
-- 
Gilles Bassière - Web/GIS software engineer
http://gbassiere.free.fr/